Vivian D. Nixon
Word Wise

The Journey

Leader, Speaker, Writer

Vivian leads College & Community Fellowship, an organization that enables women with criminal justice involvement to earn college degrees so that they can thrive. In that role she has been an advocate for equity, racial justice, and opportunity, since 2004.  But running a non-profit was not her only precious aspiration. Vivian fell in love with words while she was growing up in the segregated suburbs of Long Island, NY in the 1960s. The only housing project in town was less than a mile away from the infamous Guggenheim Estate. She has always loved reading, writing and speaking words out loud. It took Vivian fifty years of struggle to turn grappling with words and language into a lifestyle. She reinvented herself many times before receiving an MFA from Columbia University School of the Arts at age 60.  Vivian is a Pen America Justice Writing Fellow. She has been writing through the lens of justice since 1998. Vivian says words taught her to defend herself with wit and wisdom. She currently lives in Harlem, NY and is grateful for every opportunity to write, teach, and speak. Get in touch to learn about her upcoming memoir, writing process and future endeavors.

Visit The New Press

June 20, 2020

The authors’ stark descriptions of racial violence and “dehumanizing” conditions paint a grim picture of prison life and provide an insider’s perspective not found in the works of social scientists and criminologists. Their reform ideas include a quixotic but well-informed argument to abolish the punishment clause of the 13th Amendment (which allows for the exploitation of prison labor), and programs to reduce recidivism through literacy training (70% of incarcerated prisoners can only read at a fourth-grade level or below), increasing access to digital technologies during and after incarceration, and the earmarking of certain state jobs for ex-offenders. 

Weeping Wisdom

March 17, 2021

Vivian was Incarcerated in a New York State prison from March 17 1998 until March 17th, 2001. She spent her time tutoring adult learners, writing poems, and reading literature from the Harlem Renaissance era. Years later, during her studies at Columbia, the famed poet, Richard Howard, encouraged her to revisit the poems. This chapbook is currently being considered.  If not acquired it will be self-published and released on March 17, 2021. Revising these 20 year old poems provided a needed cushion between intense stretches of emotional turmoil while Vivian continues to work on a memoir. The poems extract wisdom from her complex life with a haunting precision that is sure to compliment the narrative that will follow in her memoir.

Upcoming Memoir

March 17, 2022

Vivian's memoir is yet to be titled.  It has been many years in the making and she is hopeful that it will be released in 2022.  Scenes span a lifetime of memories that are snapshots of a black woman’s journey from youth to middle-age through twists that included the American education, employment, social service, and justice systems. Not a book for policy wonks, Vivian give readers a glimpse of a normal life interrupted by ineffective policy. Complexities of being human collide with culture and systemic racism to push some people toward the Ivy Tower and others toward the prison gates.  Sometimes, both.

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